Fortune 500 List

Reading audio



2004-4-1

This is Bob Doughty with the VOA Special English Economics
Report.

For fifty years, the business magazine Fortune has published a
list of the five-hundred biggest companies in the United States. The
new Fortune five-hundred list has come out. For the third year, the
magazine names Wal-Mart the biggest company in America.

Wal-Mart is known for low prices in its stores. The company had
sales of about two-hundred-fifty-nine-thousand-million dollars last
year. Wal-Mart is first on the Fortune five-hundred list by revenue,
or the total amount of money it received. Second is Exxon Mobil.

But Exxon Mobil is first in profit among the five-hundred
companies listed by Fortune magazine. The company recorded earnings
of more than twenty-one-thousand-million dollars in
two-thousand-three.

Wal-Mart had a profit of nine-thousand-million dollars. That puts
Wal-Mart in eighth place on the list of the most profitable
companies in America.

The new Fortune five-hundred list rates General Motors as the
third largest company in the nation, down from second place last
year. The Ford Motor Company is fourth. And fifth is General
Electric.

Two more oil companies are sixth and seventh on the list. Like
Exxon Mobil, high oil prices helped sales at ChevronTexaco and
ConocoPhillips last year.

Citigroup is eighth on the Fortune five-hundred list by revenue.
But the financial services company is second in profits. Citigroup
recorded earnings of nearly eighteen-thousand-million dollars last
year.

Ninth on the Fortune five-hundred list is International Business
Machines, the computer maker known as I.B.M. And the tenth biggest
money-maker in the United States is the insurance company American
International Group, or A.I.G.

The Fortune five-hundred list is part of American business
culture. But only public companies appear on the list. Public
companies sell their shares of ownership on a stock exchange to any
investor. They must also release their financial information.

Together, the largest American companies had record sales last
year. Low interest rates meant that people and businesses had more
money to spend. Fortune also notes the tax cuts and spending
increases by the Bush administration. The magazine says few
observers had expected such a widespread profit recovery following
two years of poor results.

This VOA Special English Economics Report was written by Mario
Ritter. This is Bob Doughty.


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